Grace's Black and Gray Koi

I met Grace earlier this week outside of Penn Station. She has three stars tattooed on the inside of her right wrist and had a cherry blossom (above) inked on the back of her neck.

About a year ago, she expanded it, adding the koi fish below it:


She attributed the work to an artist named Kevin, and he did in it in a small shop in Koreatown in Manhattan.

Grace says that the tattoo is purely decorative, with no underlying meaning, and that she has no plans to add color. She likes the black and gray appearance of the piece.

Thanks to Grace for sharing her tattoo with us here on Tattoosday!

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Tattoorism: Sean's Leg Piece Represents His Transformation from Child to Adult

This installment of Tattoorism comes from Sean, a reader who offered up his leg piece for our viewing pleasure. The detail above is my favorite aspect of the tattoo, which wraps around Sean's entire left leg.

In Sean's words:

"...Even though this was done in about 4 or 5 sessions, I could not describe this in any other way except as one big tattoo. Each piece works together with each other.

I consider this my growth-themed tattoo. I started the tattoo, at the age of 18, right before I graduated from high school and finished it right before entering my first year of college, a period of immense growth in my opinion. As long as I can remember, I have been drawn to Asian artwork, so at an extremely basic level this tattoo is just extremely aesthetically pleasing to me, but there is also deeper meaning.

From the Japanese folklore I have heard, koi fish are said to grow into dragons.

That was the basic premise of my tattoo, maturing from childhood to adulthood. I decided to have the koi swimming upwards to portray the different struggles experienced in this growth. The dragon has always been such a powerful image to me and a great symbol of courage and strength, two qualities I constantly strive to achieve and portray myself.

There are also two other major images in this tattoo, the pagoda and the lotus flower.

The lotus is another symbol of "growth." I always loved the idea that a lotus begins its life in murky, dark, ugly waters, but eventually grows to become a beautiful flower despite its surroundings. It's a reminder that no matter how hard things get in life, I can make it through those times and blossom as a better person.

Finally, the personal symbolism I hold for the pagoda is a house of knowledge and discipline. I hoped to achieve, and believe I have, a great amount of knowledge and discipline through my years in college and during the growth from childhood to adulthood in general.

The tattoo was done by Mike Schweigert @ Electric Tattoo in Bradley Beach, NJ.

Thanks to Sean for sharing this amazing leg piece with us here on Tattoosday!

Sean recognized that our "posts kind of drop off, completely understandably, during the colder months." Not only did he help us with content on an ink-less day, regular readers will recognize that I generally don't run sleeves, or wrap-around tattoos, on the blog, as their characteristics make them very difficult to adequately display in their full glory. It's tough to capture them fully when on the street. So a double thanks to Sean for not only sending us an elaborate leg piece, but providing a well-written synopsis of the personal meaning behind the elements in the design!

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Jay's Incredible Chest Pieces

Last Friday, I met Jay on the 59th Street platform in Brooklyn. He had well-inked arms and he clearly had other ink peeking out from the edges of his shirt.

We chatted for a while on the platform and on the R train after it arrived. Jay was game for contributing to the blog, but wanted to offer up his chest pieces, of which he is most proud. Since taking off his shirt was not an option, he agreed to send me a photo later. That's what you see above.

Needless to say, Jay was right. His chest work is phenomenal. The artist is Eddie Carrero, who works out of Inkstop Tattoo NYC in Manhattan. It's all custom-designed and original art by Eddie. Let's take a closer look:



Not only does Eddie use phenomenal coloring on the koi and the dragon, but his shading work in the background is extremely cool as well.

Thanks to Jay for sharing his chest pieces here on Tattoosday!

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Marta's Koi Lights Up 34th Street

During lunch on Friday, good fortune found me in the form of Marta and her amazing koi tattoo.

Positioned on her left bicep, the bright colors of this piece really popped off her skin.

To Marta, koi represent overcoming adversity and are symbols of empowerment. She is happy to have such a striking reminder on her arm.

This is one of ten tattoos she has. The piece was inked by John Gallo, of Painless Steel Tattoo in the Astoria section of Queens.

Thanks to Marta for sharing her awesome koi with us here at Tattoosday!

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John's Koi: Then and Now

It was only a matter of time.

I wondered when, just buy the nature of my talking to so many tattooed people, I would approach someone about Tattoosday, having already featured them on the blog.

The answer: seven months.

Here's an excerpt from October 2007:



Does that look familiar? I wrote in October 2007:

The first piece is a classic koi tattoo, done on the front of the calf. There is a dragon on the back of the leg but it is not finished yet, as color still needs to be added.

The host, John, is from the Bay Ridge area and had his koi inked at Body Art Studios on 3rd Avenue. We know the artist, Peter Cavorsi, who also runs the shop, because he is responsible for one of mine and three of my wife's pieces. I strongly recommend his shop if you live in southwest Brooklyn. His shop is clean and he does very nice work, as you can see from John's koi.

Koi are a traditional part of Japanese tattoo, and are very common subjects n body art because they represent good fortune. Despite their being regular subjects, they seldom are ever one in the same. Like snowflakes, they tend to differ from body to body, and unlike tribal pieces, I don't think I could ever get bored of koi tattoos.

John estimated that this large leg piece, including the dragon on the back of the leg, not pictured and not yet colored, took 13 hours so far. A lot of people don't realize how much time goes into elaborate pieces like these. On shows like Miami Ink, a ten-hour project can be compressed to five minutes of screen time.

Well, last Sunday, I saw the finished work, not realizing that John had been here previously. I handed him a flier at the grocery store, and he reminded me who he was. He was busy with groceries, but he promised me he'd send photos of the finished work. He estimates that Peter had spent an additional nine hours on the piece since October, making it about 22 hours in total.

That's one thing about the whole "_____ Ink" television experience, the work is edited down so much that many people don't realize how much effort goes into the large quality pieces.

And of course, John came through with these updated shots:





Thanks to John for sharing his finished leg piece with us! Stay tuned!! He also sent me photos of his other tattoos, which will be featured in a later post.

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Tattoos I Know: Brooke's Back

Readers of Tattoosday may already be familiar with Brooke from her first appearance here, showing off her courage.

Well, she's back. Literally. The other day I spotted her wearing a sweater over a halter-top, so I thought I'd invite her back to show off her previously alluded-to koi.

From a distance, they look like wings, or perhaps even eyes:


But a closer examination reveals that they are two koi. For more on koi, jump here and follow the links.

Just to recap, Brooke is from Utah and currently lives in Hoboken.

Her first koi was inked on the right side of her back in May 2005. She was in Boise, Idaho, at the time, reeling from the end of a ten-year relationship. She was in a watering hole called Bittercreek Alehouse where, she estimates, she consumed a pitcher of mojitos. It was decided that a tattoo was on the menu for the evening so she headed over to 6th Street Studio in downtown Boise.

Brooke had heard the expression "bleeding out" when people had gone through the tattoo process. Rather than the threateningly negative meaning the phrase may have in the medical community, or the technical expression of flawed inking, Brooke understands the expression to reflect the fact that many people find the pain and the minimal blood shed of the tattoo process to be redemptive and healing.

Brooke spent time looking through books and found a design she liked, a traditional koi with a background of cherry blossom petals and waves. However, when working with John the artist, she had him enlarge the koi, brighten its color, and remove the background elements.


To her, the koi on her back symbolized moving past the ended relationship into a new chapter of her life.

Flash forward to December, seven months later, she was headed back to Boise. There was a celebrity event she wanted to attend with her friends, at which adult film director/producer/star Ron Jeremy was the main attraction. She met him at the event and the next night, was back at Bittercreek, enjoying their mojitos.

She headed back to 6th Street Studio and had John even out her back, placing another koi on the left side, facing the other.


The symmetry brought a nice balance to the ink on her back. John also gave a little touch-up to the original koi on her right side.

And here's a Tattoosday first: Brooke has provided pictures from the shop as she was getting the second koi:

And here's a photo with Brooke and Chris, the artist at 6th Street Studio:


Brooke loves her koi, which people often mistake for wings from afar. However, he finds them symbolic of her perseverance and courage.

There are many stories about koi and their significance in body art. One legend is that, when koi swim upstream and reach the source of the river, they transform into dragons. Brooke sees parallels to this in her own life, having swum away from home and reached the East Coast. She is not a dragon, but feels that her tattoos represent her transformation here in the New York City area.

Thanks gain to Brooke for sharing her ink and the great back story (no pun intended) behind these and the prior tattoo here. Next time you drink mojitos, think of koi and good fortune!

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Tattoos I Know: Paul Part 2, or, The Traditional Japanese Sleeve

NOTE: This post was updated on March 31, 2008 with three additional photographs.

Here's a Tattoosday first: a repeat subject in this blog's history.

Paul appeared here first, showing off his first tattoo, a dragon. In this post, Paul returns, showing off a full sleeve on his left arm.

The sleeve consists of traditional elements: there is a dragon, a lotus, a mask, a lily, and a koi.

If you went back in a time machine 8 or 9 years to visit Paul's arm, you would have seen a grim reaper holding a skull on the bicep:


and some roses in a pattern on the forearm. These earlier tattoos have been covered by elements in the sleeve. Even when told where the original ink lies, it's extremely difficult to see the previous work.

So I will break this down into two sections: the upper arm and the lower arm.

The upper arm began with the dragon cover-up:

The dark rock below the dragon covered the old piece. This design, which included the aum or om symbol at the top of the arm, was inked by Carlos at Rising Dragon Tattoos in Chelsea back in 2001. The aum symbol is the Siddhaṃ script version and is a mystical and sacred symbol in Indian religions. Note that this om is different than the one that appeare din the first Tattoosday post here.

Paul was not 100% thrilled with the dragon, so when he decided to finish the sleeve, the following year, he went elsewhere.

The lower part of the arm, which is the more prominent part of the sleeve, was inked by Mike Bellamy at Red Rocket Tattoo in Manhattan, although at the time his shop was known as Triple X Tattoo.

The specific elements in the sleeve are all traditional irezumi, or Japanese tattooing, elements.

The largest piece is the koi. It appears to be a golden koi.

There's a whole discussion here on what koi tattoos symbolize.

In addition, one can read here about the symbolic nature of the lotus flower in tattoos.

Paul also referred to the other flower as a spider lily.

However, there are so many different varieties of specific families of flowers, that I often have a hard time finding good pictures to represent the tattoos.

The additional element in the sleeve which is only a small part, but is still interesting is what Paul referred to as the "kite mask":

Masks are traditional parts of Japanese tattoo design, but this specific one is hard to pinpoint for me. Here are some Chinese mask kites. Yet, the fact that I cannot easily find one on the web, just fascinates me more.

Paul estimates that the whole sleeve (including the dragon from 2001) took about 20 hours of work, and he did it in 6-7 sittings, mostly in 2002.

Paul sent me the following photos from the New York City Tattoo Convention, where Mike Bellamy did some of the work on Paul's sleeve:

That's Paul and Mike on the far left of the photo:

Thanks to Paul for helping me update this post with additional shots!

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Jason's Koi and Flower

While wandering aimlessly at work, I ran into Tom (see his tattoo here) with a couple of contractors. One of them had a cool tattoo and when I mentioned it to Tom, he told me to go get my camera. And so I did.

Tom introduced me and summarized my Tattoosday project.

The guy, Jason, actually had two pieces that formed a quarter-sleeve that covered pretty much the entire upper arm.

The inner arm/bicep has a flower on it which he referred to as a pantisse.




I checked an encyclopedia and found no such name. I could spend a long time trying to figure it out, but am not willing to do so.

He got it at Fly Rite Studio in Brooklyn. The artist is Elio Espana.

The outer arm hosted the koi tattoo, which was the one I first noticed.



Jason is a Pisces, and the koi represents good luck.

This piece was inked by Damien Bart at Bruce Bart Tattooing in Ft. Lauderdale.


Thanks to Jason for contributing to Tattoosday!

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3rd Avenue Festival, Bay Ridge

On Sunday, September 30, the community of Bay Ridge held its annual Third Avenue Festival. Every Fall, there's a street fair on 3rd and every Spring, one on 5th Avenue.

The weather was beautiful and there was a plethora of tattoos, as I had anticipated. I had kids in tow, however, and despite their appreciation of body art, I have found myself less inclined to approach people when they are around.

Nonetheless, as people familiar with New York street fairs know, the kids love the big, inflatable bouncy rides. You know, when they jump around with a bunch of other kids on a huge inflatable pad, surrounded by netting and inflatable walls.

Thanks to their love of such attractions and the leniency of the operator, the kids had unlimited fun in the hour or two we spent at the festival, and I got to talk tattoo.

I am proud to report that I met and spoke with seven different folks who agreed to let me photograph their ink and get a little history of the work gracing their flesh.

In fact, until post-street fair, when I asked a guy in Foodtown about his shoulder piece, and was rebuffed, I was batting a thousand, 7 for 7.

So, thanks to all my inked volunteers. Due to space constraints and time as well, I'm going to roll them out gradually, a day at a time. Unless, I find more cool tattoos this week and start to further backlog. Oh, to have such problems!

Enough of the talk, here we go.....


The first piece is a classic koi tattoo, done on the front of the calf. There is a dragon on the back of the leg but it is not finished yet, as color still needs to be added.

The host, John, is from the Bay Ridge area and had his koi inked at Body Art Studios on 3rd Avenue. We know the artist, Peter Cavorsi, who also runs the shop, because he is responsible for one of mine and three of my wife's pieces. I strongly recommend his shop if you live in southwest Brooklyn. His shop is clean and he does very nice work, as you can see from John's koi.

Koi are a traditional part of Japanese tattoo, and are very common subjects n body art because they represent good fortune. Despite their being regular subjects, they seldom are ever one in the same. Like snowflakes, they tend to differ from body to body, and unlike tribal pieces, I don't think I could ever get bored of koi tattoos.

John estimated that this large leg piece, including the dragon on the back of the leg, not pictured and not yet colored, took 13 hours so far. A lot of people don't realize how much time goes into elaborate pieces like these. On shows like Miami Ink, a ten-hour project can be compressed to five minutes of screen time.

Thanks to John for getting me off to a great start at the Third Avenue Festival! Tune back throughout the week to see the tattoos on Tracy, another guy named John, Jaimie, Helen, Chris and Lolita Ford.

Happy October!

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